Should I Eat Back my Exercise Calories?

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  • KylaDenay
    KylaDenay Posts: 1,585 Member
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    RibStabsHeart wrote: »
    Do whatever works for you guys, this seems to work out for me. I eat my recommended 1350 a day and burn between 250-300 on the days when I work out. I always eat around 1350, but I don't force myself to eat more food at the end of the day if I'm not hungry. If I'm hungry between meals, I eat! But I have a hard time believing that the 300 cals it says I'm burning on the treadmill and bike are truly 300, and I don't have a fitbit or similar device to calculate the true amount of calories that I'm expending each day, so I err on the side of caution and make sure that I'm actually taking in the caloric goal that I set for myself.

    MFP suggested I go down to 1250 when I hit my last milestone. I can't do that comfortably, so I'm sticking where I'm at and incorporating more cardio and weights.
    What the??
  • Hornsby
    Hornsby Posts: 10,322 Member
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    RibStabsHeart wrote: »
    Do whatever works for you guys, this seems to work out for me. I eat my recommended 1350 a day and burn between 250-300 on the days when I work out. I always eat around 1350, and when I go out to eat, I generally eat back a chunk of my exercise calories. Likewise, If I'm hungry between meals, I eat! The main difference for me is that I don't force myself to eat more food at the end of the day if I'm not hungry.

    Personally, I have a hard time believing that the 300 cals it says I'm burning on the treadmill and stationary bike are actually 300 calories worth eating back. I don't have a fitbit or similar device to calculate the true amount of calories that I'm expending each day, so I err on the side of caution and make sure that I'm sticking to the caloric goal that I set for myself.

    (A final note: MFP suggested I go down to 1250 when I hit my last milestone. I can't do that comfortably, so I'm sticking where I was at previously and incorporating more cardio and weights.)

    doing_it_wrong.png
  • RibStabsHeart
    RibStabsHeart Posts: 71 Member
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    RGv2 wrote: »

    wow....

    What's your BMR....like 1700 calories?
    Pretty much -- 1790 according to MFP. Work a desk job, so "sedentary" is me.

    As for "doing it wrong," it's working just fine for me. I eat mostly whole foods, fruit, eggs, and lean protein, and that's helped me drop about 30 lbs this year. Do what works for you, I'm just answering the OP's question in regards to what's been working for me.
  • Hornsby
    Hornsby Posts: 10,322 Member
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    Eating that few of calories, of course it's working. Too put that in perspective though, I lost 75lbs in 8 months on 2K per day.
  • RibStabsHeart
    RibStabsHeart Posts: 71 Member
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    I'm literally doing exactly what this site tells me to do in terms of my intake. I also eat back my calories when I'm hungry or when I go out to eat. I don't get what's with all this resistance I'm getting here -- I wasn't even exercising regularly until about 3.5 months ago.

    With a resting BMR of 1800, I can't eat 2k calories a day and lose 2.5 pounds a week (rough estimate of 80 lb loss in 8 months) without spending way too much time exercising and probably injuring myself. I'm very happy that it works for you, but I just don't see how that would be possible for me.
  • MKEgal
    MKEgal Posts: 3,250 Member
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    My doctor & dietician told me not to eat exercise calories, and as a general rule I don't.
    Eat 10x your healthy goal weight in cal, ignore exercise calories most of the time, and eventually you'll get there.
    I'm a 5'5 female 19 year old currently at 159 lbs, and I'm trying to get down to 135-140
    Going by BMI, 115 - 145 is a healthy weight range. http://www.shapeup.org/bmi/bmi6.pdf
    So your goal is reasonable.
    I have to net around 1200 calories a day to lose 1.3-1.5 lbs per week
    Losing so fast is not reasonable when you only have 20 lb to lose.
    0.5 lb per week would be realistic, certainly no more than 1 lb, and that's going to take a lot of work.
    Adjust your goal so MFP thinks you'll lose 0.5 lb per week, ignore exercise calories, and it will work out fine.

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  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    RibStabsHeart wrote: »
    I'm literally doing exactly what this site tells me to do in terms of my intake. I also eat back my calories when I'm hungry or when I go out to eat. I don't get what's with all this resistance I'm getting here -- I wasn't even exercising regularly until about 3.5 months ago.

    With a resting BMR of 1800, I can't eat 2k calories a day and lose 2.5 pounds a week (rough estimate of 80 lb loss in 8 months) without spending way too much time exercising and probably injuring myself. I'm very happy that it works for you, but I just don't see how that would be possible for me.

    Well, you are in control of what MFP tells you actually.
    Your selection of activity level, honest or not.
    Your selection of weight loss goal, wise or not.
    Your using the tool correctly, With good, neutral, or negative effects.

    BMR is lower than resting metabolism, it's the deep sleep burn actually.
    If you got out of bed, you burned more than that. If you ate in bed, you burned more than that. Shoot, if you woke up, you burned more than that.

    With that little to lose, ya, you should have problems losing 2.5 lbs weekly, because it's a bad idea, unless you don't care what the weight is exactly. And feel like repeating this again next year, easier to gain, harder to lose.
    Reasonable at this point to minimize the muscle mass loss that happens anyway during a diet would be 1/2 lb weekly.

    And with even an estimated sedentary TDEE of 2240, than ya eating 1990 would be slow, but safer going.
    Then you could let exercise create extra deficit when you actually do it.

    Many ways to skin a cat. Or is that kick a cat. No matter, they always come back.
  • Itisneeded
    Itisneeded Posts: 147 Member
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    wunderlandz is 19, so you make sense she should be careful to not lose too much each week. How about when you are 57? I am the same size as her, only I started at 147 and want to go down to 136. According to my bathroom scale, I have so far lost 2lb a week in 3 weeks. I that dangerous for me too?
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    Itisneeded wrote: »
    wunderlandz is 19, so you make sense she should be careful to not lose too much each week. How about when you are 57? I am the same size as her, only I started at 147 and want to go down to 136. According to my bathroom scale, I have so far lost 2lb a week in 3 weeks. I that dangerous for me too?

    If just started a diet, I'm actually surprised you didn't have more water weight drop than that.
    Almost everyone will if truly going from maintenance eating to eating less, and especially when logging it and making other changes, like sodium.

    Unless you've been mighty sedentary up to this point in life, in which case you might not have that much muscle or muscle stores of glycogen with attached water, that's what drops when you first start a diet.
    You also could have started exercising, and actually gained some water weight as part of inflammation, while you lost glycogen stores and some fat too.

    Week 3 and out is what matters, but ya, better to aim for 1/2 lb weekly at this point, you really can't afford to lose any muscle mass, you'd have real issues building it back. Plus the slow down to metabolism requiring eating even less to lose and maintain would probably suck.
  • Itisneeded
    Itisneeded Posts: 147 Member
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    Ok thanks. I am exercising, but don't always eat up my calories gained by them. Never knew you could get inflammation, though. So, keep exercising, and keep eating then?
  • davontatobby
    davontatobby Posts: 1 Member
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    Hi man, if it's your post, https://www.allthelyrics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156304

    I wanted to comment: McFly-I Wanna Touch You - seems like I found the song

    @Wunderlandz
  • extra_medium
    extra_medium Posts: 1,525 Member
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    davontatobby wrote: »
    Hi man, if it's your post, https://www.allthelyrics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156304

    I wanted to comment: McFly-I Wanna Touch You - seems like I found the song

    @Wunderlandz

    incredible
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,651 Member
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    I have no clue what's going on but I love McFly!
  • mkculs13
    mkculs13 Posts: 644 Member
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    MKEgal wrote: »
    My doctor & dietician told me not to eat exercise calories, and as a general rule I don't.
    Eat 10x your healthy goal weight in cal, ignore exercise calories most of the time, and eventually you'll get there.
    I'm a 5'5 female 19 year old currently at 159 lbs, and I'm trying to get down to 135-140
    Going by BMI, 115 - 145 is a healthy weight range. http://www.shapeup.org/bmi/bmi6.pdf
    So your goal is reasonable.
    I have to net around 1200 calories a day to lose 1.3-1.5 lbs per week
    Losing so fast is not reasonable when you only have 20 lb to lose.
    0.5 lb per week would be realistic, certainly no more than 1 lb, and that's going to take a lot of work.
    Adjust your goal so MFP thinks you'll lose 0.5 lb per week, ignore exercise calories, and it will work out fine.

    51637601.png

    This. You don't have much to lose, so take the slow, more realistic, "getting you ready to maintain for life" path.
    Good luck.


  • MercuryForce
    MercuryForce Posts: 104 Member
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    MKEgal wrote: »
    My doctor & dietician told me not to eat exercise calories, and as a general rule I don't.
    Eat 10x your healthy goal weight in cal, ignore exercise calories most of the time, and eventually you'll get there.

    I feel like that is blanket advice and not great specific advice. Like, doctors will say that because people usually guess their calorie intake rather than measuring. So, "don't eat back your exercise calories" is good for someone that measures out a cup of crackers, because they are likely underestimating their calorie intake, but less good for someone that weighed out 30 g of crackers.

    And of course, it depends on what the exercise is. I'm not necessarily going to eat back the 300 calories burned from a yoga class, but I'm definitely eating back some of the 600 burned while spinning or the 1,000 burned cross-country skiing.

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